Madam, – It would be a mistake for the Green Party membership to accept the cosmetic changes made to the Nama Bill, for which their parliamentary party is claiming credit.
In reality, nothing in the legislation has been changed. The Bill remains a mechanism to force the Irish taxpayer to overpay for toxic loans, because the fundamental part of the legislation, the valuation methodology, is the same.
In effect, this dubious methodology allows the Minister to control the price paid for assets, with only the vague concept of “long- term economic value” as a guideline to guard against the risk of overpayment. But the term is sufficiently open to interpretation as to allow the Minister to justify virtually any level of overpayment. And given that he has stated unequivocally that he will keep the banks out of public hands, this means he will push to keep the price high.
While a nod to risk-sharing has certainly been made, it seems almost certain that this will not be sufficient to protect the taxpayer, because of the vague nature of the payment system and the lack of transparency written into the Bill.
Irish people should insist on nothing less than nationalisation, as this is the only clear way to protect against asset overpayment. Anything less will end up being a bailout. – Yours, etc,
A chara, – Section 217 of the National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009 (if passed into law) will make it an offence to communicate with Nama “with the intention of influencing the making of a decision in relation to the performance of the functions of Nama”.
Subsection 217 (7) states that a person who commits an offence under Section 217 “is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding €1,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or both”. Summary conviction? A fine less than €1,000? Six months?
A summary crime is a minor crime tried in the District Court (the Law Reform Commission in its Consultation Paper on Penalties for Minor Offences, 2002, states “as a general rule, summary offences are also minor offences”).
So interfering, or lobbying Nama will be minor offence. This gets more and more ridiculous. Is the Green Party truly expecting a pat on the back for this? – Is mise,